A wireless telephone typically needs to be activated before it can operate in a particular wireless system. Normally this process is required only once since subsequent uses of the wireless telephone in that system is already authorized. Access in different systems is generally covered by roaming procedures allowing use of the wireless telephone as it moves to another system. This granting of use permission is dependent upon agreements between different systems and access to databases to verify the legitimacy of the wireless telephone operating out of its home territory. There are a large number of localized and/or private wireless systems which are not part of arrangements permitting roaming and may indeed operate within a territory already covered or overlaid by other carriers including, the home carrier of a wireless telephone seeking use of a localized and/or private wireless system. Such localized and/or private wireless systems operate at low signal levels compared to outdoor macrocell systems. These localized and/or private systems are frequently found within buildings and on campus sites.
TIA/EIA-136, a cellular standard covering digital cellular TDMA systems, explicitly provides for providing service to private user communities. Service is granted by means of a Private System IDentification (PSID) code entered into each wireless telephone requesting service from the private/local wireless system. This PSID code must be entered into the handset which is requesting service. The process is elementary but it is not simple in real economic terms. For example to insert the PSID into the wireless telephone manually is elementary and at the same time both inefficient and costly especially in the circumstance of initially providing service to a ‘large’ number of users. Even on an occasional basis a structured entry process requiring experienced human intervention must still be maintained. This procedure must include decisions regarding control over duration of registry and extent of use privileges offered.
Service provisioning, by over-the-air downloading of required information, is available on many macrocellular cellular/wireless systems of public carriers. In one cellular system a telephone number and System ID (SID) code is assigned and downloaded to a wireless/cellular telephone and the user enters the related information in response to a visually presented operation menu provided by the wireless telephone. The registration is completed with a specific sequence of steps which include searching a range of digital macrocellular RF control channels; latching on to the strongest control channel received; and then installing activation and authentication information into the wireless telephone over the air.
The key to this automatic setup procedure, in part, is the ability of the wireless/cellular phone to preferentially seek (i.e., tune-in to) the strongest macrocellular setup channel in the locality. This complicates the desire for automatic setup procedures for private and local wireless/cellular systems. The first obstacle is the relatively high signal level of the macrocellular system compared to the private local/system. The relatively high signal level of the macrocellular system overrides any setup channel of the private/local system rendering it impossible for the wireless telephone to latch onto the local/private system.
At present there is no way of automatically provisioning a wireless/mobile digital phone (e.g., digital cellular telephone) to a secondary wireless communication system in an area radiated by a more powerful dominant wireless communication system (i.e., a macrocellular system). The macrocellular signal strength overrides any provisioning signal provided by the secondary system.